Science Market Update

Since HIV/AIDS emerged as a global health problem in the 1980's, researchers have been diligently working to create new treatments and vaccines for the disease. Currently, there is no cure for the disease, and treatments can only suppress it. Because of its severity and broad reach, scientists around the world receive substantial funding each year to study this virus in order to gain a more thorough understanding and better combat it. Now, thanks to an award from the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), researchers at the University of California, San Francisco will be able to study the virus in a new $20 million institute, located on the Mission Bay campus, for the next five years.

The UC San Francisco Medical Center is home to some of nation’s best doctors, industry-leading bio-researchers, and most recently, an angel. UCSF is proudly unveiling a new outpatient medical building- thanks to a $40 million gift from “angel investor” and philanthropist Ron Conway and his family.

Sugar-sweetened soda consumption might promote disease independently from its role in obesity, according to UC San Francisco researchers who found in a new study that drinking sugary drinks was associated with cell aging.

There are thousands of genes in the human genome that all have different purposes. At least 3,000 of these genes are known to express proteins that can be altered by different medications, however, the FDA has only approved drugs that target around 10 percent of these genes. That means that there are still thousands of genes that have not been thoroughly studied that, with the help of the right medication, could be targeted to help improve human health. The National Institutes of Health Common Fund has awarded 8 U.S. institutions $5.8 million for a new collaborative three-year program called Illuminating the Druggable Genome (IDG) that will study different genes and their potential to be modified by different medicines.

The three-year grant will enable a group of UCSF researchers to continue their development of the SMART diaphragm, a wireless device that can detect preterm labor onset sooner and more easily than current methods.

The University of California, San Francisco has been actively working on partnerships with several large Asian organizations to accelerate validation and commercialization of promising new technologies for health and disease solutions in 2014.